Quiet Quitting Statistics: Scope, Cost, and Driving Forces

The term “quiet quitting” first went viral on TikTok in the summer of 2022, when a short video about refusing to go above and beyond at work racked up millions of views. The phrase was new, but the behaviour wasn’t. Employee engagement data shows that most workers, in most countries, for most of the past two decades, have shown up to work without being psychologically invested in what they do.

This article shows what the research actually says about quiet quitting, how widespread it is, who’s most affected, what it costs, and what the data suggests can fix it.

Quiet Quitting by the Numbers

• 59% of the global workforce fits the quiet quitting profile.
• Only 21% of employees worldwide are engaged in their work
• Quiet quitting costs $8.8 trillion in annual lost productivity globally (9% of GDP)
• U.S. engagement hit a 10-year low in 2024, with just 31% of workers engaged
• 70% of the variance in team engagement is attributable to the manager
• 41% of quiet quitters said better engagement and company culture would improve their workplace, making it the single most-requested change
• 9 in 10 self-identified quiet quitters said they could be incentivized to work harder
• Companies with high employee engagement have 68% higher employee well-being and 23% higher profitability

What is Quiet Quitting?

Quiet quitting describes employees who meet the basic requirements of their job but don’t put in extra effort, initiative, or enthusiasm beyond the bare minimum. They show up, complete their assigned tasks, and leave. They aren’t breaking any rules or violating their job descriptions. But they’ve stopped caring about outcomes beyond their own responsibilities, and they’ve mentally disconnected from the organization’s goals.

The concept matters for business leaders because discretionary effort, the willingness to go above and beyond, is what separates functional teams from high-performing ones. When a significant share of the workforce withdraws that effort, the effects compound across productivity, innovation, retention, and culture.

In 2022, this behavior got a name and a social media moment. But the numbers behind it are far more significant than any TikTok trend. According to Gallup’s global workforce research, roughly four out of five workers worldwide are either quietly quitting or actively working against their employer’s interests. The consulting firm estimates this costs the global economy approximately $8.8 trillion per year.

In 2024, global employee engagement fell to 21%, down from 23% the prior year, according to Gallup’s 2025 State of the Global Workplace report. That was only the second decline in engagement over the past 12 years, and the drop matched the decline seen during COVID-19 lockdowns.

(Sources: Global workforce research and 2025 State of the Global Workplace report)

How Many Workers Are Quiet Quitting?

The answer depends on how you measure it. Gallup uses a 12-question engagement survey (the Q12) to categorize workers into three buckets: engaged, not engaged, and actively disengaged. Workers in the “not engaged” category are doing the minimum required. Workers who are “actively disengaged” are going further and potentially undermining their employer. Together, these two groups represent what most people mean when they talk about quiet quitting and loud quitting, respectively.

The global numbers are eye-opening. Gallup’s 2023 State of the Global Workplace report, based on a poll of 122,416 randomly selected workers in more than 160 countries, found that 59% of the global workforce was not engaged. Another 18% were actively disengaged. Only 23% were engaged. CBS News reported that Gallup described the 59% not-engaged group as workers who are “filling a seat and watching the clock” and “putting in the minimum effort required.”

Employee engagement in the United States is higher than the global average, but still dangerously low. According to Gallup’s 2023 data, 31% of U.S. workers were engaged in 2022, while 52% were not engaged and 17% were actively disengaged. That means roughly two out of three American workers weren’t fully invested in their jobs.

By the end of 2024, things had gotten worse. HR Dive reported that U.S. engagement hit a 10-year low: just 31% engaged, and 17% actively disengaged. Gallup’s surveys of 79,000 U.S. employees throughout 2024 showed the engaged percentage dropped by two points from 2023, representing approximately 3.2 million fewer engaged workers. Levels this low hadn’t been recorded since 2014.

It’s worth noting that Gallup’s engagement framework is more conservative than some alternatives. Firms like Culture Amp and Perceptyx typically report engagement scores in the 70% to 80% range. The difference is in the definition. Gallup’s Q12 measures deep emotional and operational engagement through specific questions about things like knowing what’s expected at work and having someone who encourages your development. Broader surveys often capture a wider range of positive sentiment. Both approaches have value, but when people reference the “quiet quitting” data, they’re almost always citing Gallup’s stricter framework.

There’s also survey data where workers identify themselves as quiet quitters. A ResumeBuilder.com survey of 1,000 working Americans, conducted in August 2022, found that 21% described themselves as doing only the bare minimum. An additional 5% said they were doing less than what their job requires. But 74% said they were going above and beyond.

An interesting detail from the ResumeBuilder data is that mid-career workers ages 35 to 44 were the demographic most likely to self-identify as quiet quitters at 24%, compared to 17% of workers ages 18 to 24 and just 7% of those over 54. That runs counter to the popular narrative that quiet quitting is primarily a Gen Z phenomenon.

(Sources: Gallup, CBS News, HR Dive, ResumeBuilder.com)

The Generational and Demographic Breakdown

Quiet quitting affects different groups of workers in different ways. According to Gallup’s analysis, the percentage of engaged employees under age 35 dropped by 4% between 2019 and 2022, while active disengagement in that group rose by 6%. Young workers also reported sharp declines in specific engagement measures. The percentage who agreed that someone at work cares about them, encourages their development, and provides opportunities to learn and grow all dropped by 9% or more.

Among fully remote and hybrid young workers specifically, Gallup found that the percentage who strongly agreed someone encourages their development dropped by 9%. Fewer than 4 in 10 young remote or hybrid employees said they clearly know what’s expected of them at work.

The trend continued into 2024. HR Dive reported that Generation Z employee engagement dropped by 5% in a single year, with workers under 35 and those in finance, technology, transportation, and professional services showing the steepest declines.

Pew Research Center data fills in a related piece of the picture. A February 2023 survey of 5,902 U.S. workers found that 51% reported being extremely or very satisfied with their jobs overall, but there was a wide gap between age groups. 67% of workers 65 and older were highly satisfied, compared to 44% of workers ages 18 to 29. By 2024, Pew found that satisfaction with training and development opportunities had fallen from 44% to 37%, and satisfaction with opportunities for promotion dropped from 33% to 26%.

(Sources: Gallup, HR Dive, Pew Research Center 2023, Pew Research Center 2024)

The Hours-Worked Evidence

Beyond survey data, there’s hard economic evidence that workers reduced their hours. A January 2023 working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research, authored by economists Dain Lee, Jinhyeok Park, and Yongseok Shin at Washington University in St. Louis, used Bureau of Labor Statistics data to examine the decline in total U.S. hours worked. They found a 3% decline between 2019 and 2022, and more than half of that decline came from workers reducing their individual hours rather than people leaving the workforce entirely.

The reduction was concentrated among a specific demographic. According to Washington University’s interview with the researchers, the top quarter of workers by hours worked, mostly college-educated men who had been working 50+ hours per week, saw their annual hours drop from a range of roughly 2,340 to 2,860 down to 2,236 to 2,600. That’s equivalent to more than a full week of lost work per year.

The researchers found this was primarily a phenomenon of married men. Married men were voluntarily reducing hours in favor of more social activity and leisure time. Single men showed very little change, and women did not show a significant reduction.

The researchers concluded, via an NBER Digest summary, that in prior economic cycles, changes in total hours worked were driven almost exclusively by people entering or leaving the workforce. The pandemic era was the first time a significant share of the decline came from employed workers simply choosing to work fewer hours.

(Sources: National Bureau of Economic Research, Washington University, NBER Digest)

The Economic Cost of Quiet Quitting

Gallup’s 2023 report estimates the cost of low employee engagement at $8.8 trillion per year, equivalent to 9% of global GDP. CBS News reported this figure alongside Gallup’s findings, noting the scale of the problem in terms that got mainstream media attention.

When engagement dropped further in 2024, the costs grew. Gallup’s 2025 report estimated the additional lost productivity at $438 billion. On the flip side, Gallup calculated that if every organization reached the engagement levels of today’s best-practice companies (approximately 70% engagement), the global economy could grow by an additional $9.6 trillion, a 9% boost in GDP.

In the United States, Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that nonfarm business labor productivity declined by 1.5% in 2022, the year quiet quitting entered mainstream conversation. Productivity then recovered, increasing 1.6% in 2023 and 2.3% in 2024.

A BLS Monthly Labor Review article cited the NBER research, noting that per capita aggregate hours worked fell by an average of 11 hours per year between 2019 and 2022. Six of those hours were attributable to workers reducing their own hours, and five to lower labor force participation.

Disengagement also has a direct connection to turnover costs. Gallup found that engaged employees would need a 31% pay increase to consider leaving their current role, while not-engaged and actively disengaged employees said they’d switch jobs for just a 22% raise. That nine-point gap means disengaged workers are significantly cheaper for competitors to recruit. And according to Gallup’s 2025 global report, more than half (51%) of currently employed workers worldwide said they were watching for or actively seeking a new job.

(Source: Gallup 2023, CBS News, Gallup 2025, BLS, BLS Monthly Labor Review)

Why the Research Points to Management, Not Laziness

If quiet quitting were simply about lazy workers or a generational attitude problem, you’d expect the data to be randomly distributed across organizations. It isn’t. The strongest research consistently points to management quality as the primary variable that separates high-engagement teams from those with low engagement.

The most cited study on this point comes from leadership consultancy Zenger/Folkman, published in Harvard Business Review in August 2022. The researchers analyzed 360-degree assessment data on 2,801 managers, who were rated by more than 13,000 direct reports, averaging five per manager. They looked at two variables: how employees rated their manager’s ability to balance results with concern for people’s needs, and whether the work environment made employees want to go the extra mile.

The gap between the best and worst managers was enormous. Managers rated highest at balancing results with relationships saw 62% of their direct reports willing to give discretionary effort, with only 3% quietly quitting. The least effective managers saw only 20% willing to give extra effort, with 14% of their direct reports quietly quitting. That means the worst managers had three to four times as many quiet quitters as the best managers.

Zenger and Folkman concluded that trust was the single most important factor. In their analysis of more than 113,000 leaders, they found that when direct reports trusted their leader, the likelihood of quiet quitting dropped significantly.

Gallup’s data reinforces this at a structural level. According to the State of the Global Workplace report, 70% of the variance in team engagement is attributable to the manager. And managers themselves aren’t doing well. Global manager engagement dropped from 30% to 27% in 2024. Young managers under 35 saw a 5% decline. Female managers experienced the steepest drop at 7%.

The report concluded that the primary driver of the 2024 engagement decline was falling manager engagement. When managers disengage, their teams follow.

HR Dive’s analysis of the U.S. data showed this playing out in specific engagement measures. Clarity of expectations dropped to 46%, down from 56% in March 2020. The percentage of employees who felt someone at work cares about them fell to 39%, down from 47%. And the percentage who believed someone encourages their development dropped to 30%, down from 36%.

(Sources: Harvard Business Review, Gallup, HR Dive)

Stress, Wellbeing, and the Emotional Side of Disengagement

Quiet quitting doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s happening alongside record levels of workplace stress, and the two reinforce each other.

In Gallup’s 2022 global survey, 44% of employees said they experienced “a lot of stress” the previous day. That was the second consecutive year stress hit a record high, continuing an upward trend that started roughly a decade earlier. CBS News reported this figure alongside the broader engagement findings.

The stress gap between engaged and disengaged workers is substantial. According to Gallup’s data, 56% of actively disengaged workers reported high daily stress, compared to 30% of engaged employees. Gallup’s own report noted that on many well-being measures, including stress, anger, worry, and loneliness, being actively disengaged at work is equivalent to, or worse than, being unemployed. That means a significant portion of the workforce may be better off emotionally if they had no job at all.

Broader well-being numbers have also declined. According to Gallup’s 2025 report, the share of employees globally who rated their overall life well-being as “thriving” dropped to 33% in 2024, down from 35% in 2022. In the U.S. and Canada, the figure was higher at 52%, but 4% in a single year.

A 2024 Gallup meta-analysis covering 183,000 business units across 53 industries and 90 countries found that companies with high employee engagement reported 68% higher employee well-being, 23% higher profitability, and 13% higher productivity. The research makes a clear case that engagement and well-being aren’t separate initiatives. They’re connected, and they both affect the bottom line.

(Sources: CBS News, CNBC, Gallup 2025, Gallup 2024)

What Quiet Quitters Say Would Fix It

One of the more encouraging findings in the data is that quiet quitters aren’t lost causes. Most of them can tell you exactly what would change their behavior.

When Gallup asked quiet quitters what single change would make their workplace better, CNBC reported that 85% of responses fell into three categories: engagement or culture, pay and benefits, or well-being and work-life balance. The single largest group, 41%, said they wanted better team engagement and company culture. Pay and benefits came second. That hierarchy matters for leaders who assume the solution is simply paying people more.

In the ResumeBuilder.com survey, 9 in 10 self-identified quiet quitters said they could be incentivized to work harder. Only about 10% appeared to have fully checked out.

And the evidence shows that high engagement is achievable for organizations willing to invest in it. According to Lindauer’s analysis of Gallup data, best-practice organizations reach engagement levels of approximately 75% among managers and 70% among non-managerial employees. Compare that to the global average of 21%. The gap between average and best-practice is enormous, suggesting that most organizations have barely scratched the surface of what’s possible.

Manager development appears to be a key lever. According to Gallup’s 2025 report, when managers receive both role-specific training and consistent ongoing development support, their reported well-being jumps from 28% to 50%. Given that 70% of team engagement variance traces back to the manager, investing in manager capability looks like the highest-return intervention available.

The NBER researchers offered a broader view of the problem. As Shin explained in a Washington University interview, the pandemic gave workers a chance to reassess their priorities, and many now hold fundamentally different views on work-life balance. By international standards, the U.S. already stands out for its long working hours. The average American worked 1,791 hours in 2021, significantly more than workers in Canada (1,685), Japan (1,607), the UK (1,497), France (1,490), or Germany (roughly 1,400). The researchers suggested that some of the hours reduction may simply be a correction toward norms that the rest of the developed world adopted decades ago.

(Sources: CNBC, Entrepreneur, ResumeBuilder.com, Lindauer, Gallup, Washington University)

For business owners and leaders, the takeaway from the data is that quiet quitting is real, measurable, and expensive. But the same research that quantifies the problem also points toward the solution. Better management, clearer expectations, genuine investment in worker development, and culture are clear ways to minimize quiet quitting.